Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Logan for attending. We do not have the large amount of questions. When the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission requested an audience today, the committee was struck by the fact that it never asked for this before. In fulfilling its statutory function, the commission believed it was sufficiently important to put some of these points on record. I have not heard them in any other scenario. The committee felt it was critical to have the points put on record, obviously before the statutory instrument is signed in because it would be a bit late afterwards. In that context, we probably have to sound the alarm bells on the public record. Much of what the commission said was said by us when we had the Department of Justice and Equality representatives here. Collectively, on both sides of the table, we now have to say a lot of time has passed since. It is a question of what happened in that time.

My first question, given that the commission has a statutory role and has requested an audience on this, is whether the commission would normally meet the Department on this. Ms Logan said there was a clashing commitment, which is fair enough, but is the delay normal? Has the commission had as much engagement on this issue as it normally would? Is this a little different?